ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to understand the processes through which community identities have been created in modern India, the manner in which gender and community intersect with each other and the way in which these two elements interact with government policy. It highlights the mutual complementarity of the government and religious leadership in reinforcing community identity and the effect of the mutualism on legal reform. The chapter explores the questions in relation to the debates about personal law and legal reform generated by the Supreme Court judgement in the Shah Bano case, its meaning and strategic importance for minority identity, women's equality and secularism. Women's rights could be turned into ammunition against a secular State which was prepared to revoke the judgement to mollify Muslim fears. The Congress government exaggerated the strength of the conservative opposition, manipulated by a politically ambitious Muslim leadership.
